A Midnight Excuse
by Stitchar
Summary: "I would be expecting my daughter to call me in midnight when she hit her teenage years, but you're like what? Millions of year old? At least give me one good excuse as to why you're calling me in one in the morning."
1. Midnight Excuse

**A Midnight Excuse**

AN: Pretty late for a Prime Fanfiction isn't it? I gotta tell ya, the seasons are so long and yet it seems so short. I want Prime to have a Season 4 where Optimus is reborn or something like that and that something new evil came out to destroy the broken down Cybertron or something like that. But well, things are not meant to be I guess.

This takes place in a future where Jack is older and married. Please Review! ;)

Disclaimer: The plot belongs to me, but the characters in the story only belongs to Hasbro and their respected artists

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><p>Jack groaned as he tried to keep his headache less more annoying than it was. He glared at the darkness, telling him it was night and his drowsiness was not strange enough to tell him that he was rudely awakened.<p>

He checked the time in his alarm and growled once more.

It's one in the morning. Freakin' one the morning.

"Honey?" Jack looked back at the stirring lump next to him, "Who's calling?"

"Just go back to sleep, dear." Jack assured tiredly as he stood up from his spot, "I'll see who's calling us at this time of night."

He listened to his wife mumbling in agreement and went back to sleep as she was told to and making sure his wife was asleep soundly, he walked out of the room to pick up the phone. He'll make sure to tell off whoever was calling them to never bother them at night like this-he likes his sleep thank you very much.

"Hello?" Jack answered tiredly as he pressed the phone to his ear, relieved that the ringing has stopped, "You better have a good excuse to wake me up-"

"Hello?" a deep, monotonous voice was heard, "Is this Mr. Darby's residence?"

"Yes, this is he." Jack answered slowly, hoping this is not a stranger who knows his phone number like the MECH incident he had when he was in high school. It was not a good experience to repeat, especially when you have a wife and a daughter who is only few months old.

"It's me, Optimus."

Jack widened his eyes, his fatigue gone with alert as he shuffled to hold his phone comfortably.

"Optimus?" he whispered, astonished that the Autobot leader had managed to reach-even knowing his number! "What's wrong? Is it the Deceptions again?"

It was silent on the other line and Jack was getting worried. Optimus being silent wasn't a good sign to him considering he had seen bad things happening whenever Optimus was quite.

Finally, after a long pause, Optimus finally spoke.

"Yes and no."

Jack felt his eyes blink, and blinked them again to make sure he wasn't dreaming or anything. Yes and no? Jack thought this must be Optimus's way of saying 'maybe' or the lack of it. He _never_ heard Optimus saying Yes and no at the same time.

"Alright," Jack sighed, "What kind of the answer is that? Yes there's a Decepticon or no there was no Decepticons?"

Again it was silent and Jack was _not_ going to bother with Optimus's lack of answers.

"Look, Opitmus," Jack ranted, "It's _one_ in the morning, I need my sleep as well as my wife and my daughter. Hell, I would be expecting my daughter to call me in midnight when she hit her teenage years, but you're like what? Millions of year old? At least give me one _good _excuse as to why you're calling me in one in the morning."

"I…apologize for the late call, Jack." Opitmus replied after hearing Jack venting out his frustration due to his lack of sleep, "Can you…um, call Ratchet to Groundbridge to my location?"

"And why should I do that?"

Optimus said nothing, but as if cautious he answered;

"Um…If I say I was attacked by Decepticons, had my comm. link disabled, getting stuck on ledge and unable to transform…would you believe me?"


	2. Late Night Readings

**Chapter 2  
><strong>**Late Night Readings**

**AN: I tried.**

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><p>Humans may be social creatures, Knockout mused as he walked around the large ship of <em>Nemesis, <em>but they can create activities in a form of hobby. While all Cybertronians have their own activities back in the Golden Age like being a scripter, or sculptor-human's hobbies were more...broad.

Their art were branched out from erratic tribal designs like those he saw in the alleyways and few regal art when he searched through the site to pass his time. Even stories have its own broad branch, spreading to fiction, non-fiction, fantasy and surprisingly, a new genre known as fanfiction.

Knockout was not much of a reader, (he can read mind you, he preferred racing than reading long reports) but he is sure that many fictional reading is more for either Starscream or Soundwave's past time. He's pretty sure he had seen them reading whenever they were getting energon and both TIC and SIC would talk about various subjects depending on the stories they have read. Last time he heard them was talking about a chosen one battling against his murderer who had killed his parents and tried to kill him based on his prophecy, but ended up getting a lighting bolt of a scar in the end.

As far as he knew they were still reading on the fifth one.

Knockout did read like they do, but it was more of a romance or dystopian stories that that reminded him of Decepticons during their near end at the Golden Age. He gotta admit to those flesh creatures, they sure have large imaginations.

He yawned as he walked around, deciding that it was late enough for him to head back to his med bay, he took a quick route to the throne room where he knew that is where his Lord is occupying at the moment before his required sleep. His Leader had taken a huge beating from Big O, which wasn't much for him, but it was enough for Knockout to note that Big M needs rest.

When he reached to the throne room he was surprised to see his Decepticon Leader reading something on the datapad.

"My lord?" Megatron looked up from his pad, "You are in need of rest, that beating from Big O is draining you."

"Alright." Megatron mumbled, as he skimmed the datapad, "Wait a bit, I'm finishing up the recent chapter of The Gladiator..." he then shut the datapad off, surprising Knockout that Megatron. The great Decepticon Leader, the Unicron Spawn _is reading a novel_.

"I wasn't aware you were reading novels." Megatron looked at his Medical Officer before snorting.

"I was reading one of the good fiction based from that book." His leader replied, "Some world wide web, known as Fanfiction dot net or something amongst that."

If Knockout can swallow two Energon Cubes in his mouth, he would've, but he wisely closed his mouth as he nodded his helm, not wanting to be in the wrath of his leader. Deciding that his leader would manage himself fine, he left the throne room and headed back to the Med Bay where Breakdown would be waiting for him with the buffer.

-.-

Knockout felt an utter disturbance when he wakes up from his berth. His inner medic is screaming that something is wrong and Knockout will figure out what was bothering his wiring.

He decided to follow his instincts that was telling him where to go and he stealthily slipped away from Breakdown's embrace, not wanting disturb his partner. He slowly walked out from his med bay as he walked silently through the vacant hallway of the Nemesis again.

He checked every room that were occupied by the Decepticons and saw no other disturbance other than Soundwave giving Laserbeak her dose of Energon. Knockout's processor were knocking everywhere as he listed every possible suspect to his instinct until he realized that he hadn't checked on to his leader yet.

Heading towards to his leader's private room, he decided to take a quick peek at the room and leave as soon as he checks with him. If it wasn't them, then he'll settle for his own body for being too tired.

Deciding that, he opening the door tiny bit to make sure that his leader won't be disturbed and took a quick glance.

Only for him to snap open harshly, surprising the large Decepticon Leader nearly off his bearth.

"LORD MEGATRON!" Knockout roared, "TURN THAT DATAPAD OFF! DO YOU KNOW WHAT TIME IT IS RIGHT NOW?"

"I'm on a last chapter..." Megatron pouted as he pointed to the datapad to make his point. But Knockout was too tired and too flabbergasted to even care at this point.

"I _don't_ care whether if you're on a new chapter or the last chapter of a fiction you are reading, but right now you, sir" He grumbled as he pointed to his leader, "Need to sleep. You can finish it when you're done bashing Big O."

"But-"

"Just. Sleep."

"Okay."


	3. Culture Culture all Around

**Chapter 3  
>Culture Culture all around<strong>

**AN: I tried.**

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><p>One thing that is really entertaining to watch alien species is to trying to understand the culture of their human race. Folwer was happy enough to throw around any kind of reference he can get from movies, countries, and internet just to get any kind of reaction he can get from various bots in the base.<p>

Ratchet only twitched, as if trying to determine if Folwer had lost his mind or annoyed by such phrase of 'insult' he received. Optimus Prime looked a bit lost, as if the translation between them had flew through armada of Star Wars. Bumblebee was entertained by the colorful springs of culture reference. Arcee not even flinching, but rolled her optics at the human. Bulkhead just stood there like Optimus Prime, the translation lost between the monster tuck rally.

Their children companions were no help to the large bots, as they were stifling their laughter to their reaction as they were trying to process what Nyancat had anything to do with Rockwell and Star Wars.

Miko mentioned about few social media, and thinking that it would be a good idea to introduce the Autobots to an interesting site called 'Tumblr'. Ratchet was stumped at the misspelling, while the bots were confused on what was entertaining about tumbling through sites was until Miko instructed them on what it does. They can even follow people they find interesting, reblog or like any post that catches their interest or post anything that is their fancy.

She even introduced them to Facebook and Twitter, which stumped Ratchet even more about the words. ("What does twitter even _mean_?""It's to tweet something!"_"That's not what I meant!"_) After the introduction to social media, the humans waited for their reaction about media culture and if they're interested into it.

Ratchet, of course, refused to be in any social media as he had no time for it. Optimus seemed interested, but decided that it was not worth the risk of being tracked down by the government. Arcee find it interesting, but doesn't find any reason why she would join. Bulkhead just wanted to exercise his strength as he and Arcee left to the training ground. Bumblebee being the scout he was, just headed on to his scouting mission, stating that while looked fun, he had too much to do.

The humans were a bit disappointed at that.

-.-

It was midnight, and Ratchet was pulling the so called "All-nighter" as what humans call it in the Earth time (cybertronian's time were extremely different than Earth's time) as he worked on the spare parts that Bumblebee had brought back from his scouting.

"Hey."

Ratchet looked up from his work table to see Arcee peeking through the door.

"Do you have one?"

Ratchet looked around the base to check if anyone was around. Seeing none, he turned to her and nodded his helm. Arcee grinned as she hopped out.

"What's the name?"

"I needed that. All in one word, all lowercased." Ratchet replied as he focused back on his work. He had received a new notification that he had gained a new follower to his page. Checking Arcee's name, he followed right back, noting that he had all followed his teammates' page.

"Really Arcee? _RCBiker_? Is that you can come up with?"

"Hey!" Arcee growled as she shook her servo, "You should've seen Bulkhead and Bumblebee's name. Guess which one they took?"

"Wreak n' smash and Bee-yotch?"

"Duh," was Arcee's reply as she continued, "And Optimus's name was just the number; 13."

Ratchet wasn't sure which is worse. That everyone's username was just outrageous or the fact that everyone now had a Tumblr page.

Oh well, not his problem.

-.-

"SOUNDWAVE!" Knock Out kicked the throne room open where the Third in Command was working. His abrupt appearance had made everyone, even Megatron jump at his loud exclamation, "WHAT DID I SAY ABOUT USING EARTH'S CULTURE?"

"Never use it as a virus?" Soundwave replied, replaying various voices of others even Knock Out's to say the rule.

"Yes, and..." Knock Out hissed as he inched closer to the meek communication officer, "Care to explain why you think it's a _good idea_ to send a Nyancat virus in my_ office computer_?"

Soundwave said nothing, as if he was ashamed of what he had done.

"Ten cycles." Knock Out fumed, "It took me ten _fragging_ cycles to get rid of that meowing virus and not only that, but it had _eaten_ my medical reports that I am almost _done_. No thanks to _you_, I have to _restart all over again_ from _scratch_. What do you say for yourself?"

Everyone in the room was silent.

"...I'm sorry, Nyancat?"


End file.
